Abstra, which has developed a no-code tool for designers and programmers to build professional apps, has raised $2.3 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Latin America Fund.
Abstra was founded in March of 2020. Costa has one startup sale under his belt after graduating from college. He co-founded and served as the CTO of PaperX, a edtech startup. Costa was 23 years old when the company sold to the larger edtech Descomplica. He co-founded a game studio that had a lot of Brazilian customers.
Abstra's goal is to help people make apps without coding. It's good for agencies who want to deliver faster results or for non-technical departments that need to change but rely on centralized engineering teams to implement everything, according to Costa. Designers and junior programmers can build professional websites and apps much faster with Abstra.
No-code tools have limitations that make them difficult to use.
Costa believes that some no-code tools struggle to serve designers because they need a lot of fine tuning while having no coding skills.
He said that some are too technical while others are just assembling pre-built interfaces. The mechanism we are developing is easy to use and flexible.
Abstra focuses on late-/growth-stage tech companies and enterprise IT consulting companies. The startup is growing MRR 45% on average and has landed 11 customers, including Stone and Descomplica. The startup caught the eye of SoftBank after participating in Y Combinator. Iporanga and others have invested in the company.
Every business has had to go digital.
The demand for software production exploded. There aren't enough developers available. No-code was very beneficial.
The young startup was given the chance to pitch a company that had over $50 billion in revenue in 2021, because Costa had a friend who worked there.
Costa said that the client decided to run a pilot at the same time he showed the results from previous clients. They are one of the most active users. As an enterprise consulting firm, using tools like ours makes them more competitive.
The no and low code opportunity set is in its early days, according to Patrick Arippol.
He wrote via email that Abstra's initial product showed a lot of promise and potential at a global level.
The startup plans to use the new capital to beef up its current staff of nine.
